Category Archives: Museums and Archives

The new exhibition in Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament, `Voice and Vote: Women’s Place in Parliament’ has opened to excellent press coverage. Designers Metaphor have created an evocative structure, with recreated spaces, wonderful objects from the Parliamentary Archives and private collections, clearly told accounts of the women who fought for the vote (and a few who fought against it), and thought-provoking questions for the visitor. It was a privilege to be part of the team that researched, wrote and moulded these stories.

The photos show the final `Chamber’ set, the exhibition in Westminster Hall, Lady Peers and MPs and the infamous `Cage’, the Victorian viewing gallery for Ladies.

Poole Museum has some great buildings and collections and it’s been really interesting visiting, listening and writing a feasibility study for their future, along with colleagues Stephen Greenberg and Kara Dickinson from Metaphor Design. Scaplen’s Court and the Town Cellars are grade 1 listed, and you can see the harbour from the top floor of the warehouse building. The pottery is great, of course, but the wreck remains are the big stars. This can be one of the south’s best museums.

It’s great to be back with the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery team. Plans for the new hub of museum, library, adult ed, tourism and community services are coming together quickly and I’m working with museum designers Metaphor. Tunbridge Wells’ excellent collections are going to populate the whole building, and I’m researching and writing lots of content on those collections for the project. Metaphor are turning the often surprising stories of Tunbridge Wells into a fresh and exciting way of enjoying all that stuff.

Many congratulations to friends and colleagues at the Silverstone Heritage Project, the BRDC Archive and Mather Design on their Stage 2 HLF pass. Plans are now moving quickly towards the Spring 2019 opening date for the Centre, not just building and fitting out, but gathering in those private collections that are such an important part of British racing heritage. More details at http://www.silverstone.co.uk/about/silverstone-heritage-experience/

I’ve been helping out the recently established KCCC Heritage Trust with curatorial advice on their collections. Care and cataloguing are the priorities and they have a great collection to share more widely. It was a privilege to handle material like the original 1876 scorebook for WG Grace’s 344 against Kent – the first ever score over 300 and his highest. There are many memories of the 1970s glory years to bring a tear to the eye of us Kent fans, but also an eye on contemporary collecting.

Mather are designing the new 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sport Museum in Doha and I’ve been helping with the content development. That’s meant researching the story of different sports from all around the world, some familiar and loved (probably a bit too much cricket in there), others less known. Camel racing, anyone?